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Trying to Be an F2P Success Story

We spoke with David Hoffman, Executive Producer behind OGPlanet's bid to publish Cabal Online for the North American market. The stateside variant of the game abandons the subscriber model in favor of microtransactions and puts the game squarely in the hands of an energetic quasi-developing publisher with tons of ambition and a work ethic to match. Hoffman expounds on his formula to help Cabal avoid the ash heap of also-ran F2Ps in this brief interview. It's all part of our live coverage from GDC '08.

Unlike many other entrepreneurial spirits working on such a project, Hoffman invested heavily of himself to ensure that Cabal Online doesn't fall into the diction death trap that has befallen many an Asian crossover. "4 to 6 weeks, morning and night," Hoffman related, describing how long it took him to clean-up the rough translations given him as well as build-in some signature humor. "It wasn't cool… my eyes would bug out. I couldn't go home and look at the computer screen or watch TV; my eyes hurt. I'd come home and go to bed, then go back and do it again. It had to be done."

• David Hoffman, Exec. Producer of Cabal Online, Interviewed at GDC 2008
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